Gun violence in the United States

Gun violence is a widely debated issue in the United States. Gun-related violence is most common in poor urban areas and frequently associated with gang violence, often involving male juveniles or young adult males.[1][2]

In 2010, according to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, 67% of all homicides in the U.S. were conducted using a firearm.[6] According to the FBI, in 2012, there were 8,855 total firearm-related homicides in the US, with 6,371 of those attributed to handguns.[7] 61% of all gun-related deaths in the U.S. are suicides.[3] In 2010, there were 19,392 firearm-related suicides, and 11,078 firearm-related homicides in the U.S.[8] In 2010, 358 murders were reported involving a rifle while 6,009 were reported involving a handgun; another 1,939 were reported with an unspecified type of firearm.[9] High-profile assassinations such as those of John F. Kennedy, Martin Luther King, and the Beltway sniper attacks involved the use of rifles, usually with telescopic sights, from concealed locations.

Legislation at the federal, state, and local levels have attempted to address gun violence through a variety of methods, including restricting firearms purchases by youths and other "at-risk" populations, setting waiting periods for firearm purchases, establishing gun buyback programs, law enforcement and policing strategies, stiff sentencing of gun law violators, education programs for parents and children, and community-outreach programs.

Gun policies are influenced by interpretations of the Second Amendment to the United States Constitution, an ambiguously worded amendment which has been the subject of disagreement over the years. It was not until 2008 that the Supreme Court partially clarified the meaning of this amendment in District of Columbia v. Heller, in which it invalidated a firearm ban in Washington, D.C., stating that the second amendment protects an individual's right to possess a firearm for traditionally lawful purposes, such as self-defense within the home and within federal enclaves. In June 28, 2010 the Supreme Court ruled in the case of McDonald v. Chicago that this protection extends to the states as well.

A widely held apprehension to a national gun registry has led to the prohibition of ATF and local law enforcement from access to digital databases for the purpose of identification of the place of sale for weapons recovered at crime scenes.[10]

The Congressional Research Service in 2009 estimated there were 310 million firearms in the U.S., not including weapons owned by the military. 114 million of these were handguns, 110 million were rifles, and 86 million were shotguns.[11] In that same year, the Census bureau stated the population of people in the U.S. at 306 million.[12]

Suicides involving firearms

A 1992 report in the New England Journal of Medicine shows an association between household firearm ownership and gun suicide rates, finding that individuals in a firearm owning home are close to five times more likely to commit suicide than those individuals who do not own firearms.[13][14] Other research has indicated the association is not statistically significant between countries.[15]:30 During the 1980s and early 1990s, there was a strong upward trend in adolescent suicides with guns[16]:29 as well as a sharp overall increase in suicides among those age 75 and over.[17] In the U.S., firearms remain the most common method of suicide, accounting for 51% of all suicides committed in 2006.[18]

The U.S. Department of Justice reports that approximately 60% of all adult firearm deaths are by suicide, 61% more than deaths by homicide.[19]

While killing people in the 19th century was considered to be violent crime, killing sometimes took the form of riots and other forms of disorder in cities.[22] Gun violence sometimes played a role in these riots (see Haymarket riot). Homicide rates in cities such as Philadelphia were significantly lower in the 19th century than in modern times.[23] In the U.S. in 2011, 67 percent of homicide victims were killed by a firearm: 66 percent of single-victim homicides and 79 percent of multiple-victim homicides.[24]

During the 1980s and early 1990s, homicide rates surged in cities across the United States (see graphs at right).[25] Handgun homicides accounted for nearly all of the overall increase in the homicide rate, from 1985 to 1993, while homicide rates involving other weapons declined during that time frame.[26] The rising trend in homicide rates during the 1980s and early 1990s was most pronounced among lower income and especially unemployed males. Youths and Hispanic and African American males in the U.S. were the most represented, with the injury and death rates tripling for black males aged 13 through 17 and doubling for black males aged 18 through 24.[16][21] The rise in crack cocaine use in cities across the U.S. is often cited as a factor for increased gun violence among youths during this time period.[27][28][29]

Higher gun-related death rates can be found in developing countries and countries with political instability.[26][30][31] However, some developed countries with strict gun laws have almost eliminated gun violence.[32][33][34][35]

Prevalence of homicide and violent crime is greatest in low income urban areas of the U.S. In metropolitan areas, the homicide rate in 2005 was 6.1 per 100,000 compared with 3.5 in non-metropolitan counties.[36] In U.S. cities with populations greater than 250,000, the mean homicide rate was 12.1 per 100,000.[37] According to FBI statistics, the highest per capita rates of gun-related homicides in 2005 were in D.C. (35.4/100,000), Puerto Rico (19.6/100,000), Louisiana (9.9/100,000), and Maryland (9.9/100,000).[38]

Homicide rates among 18- to 24-year-olds declined since 1993, but remain higher than they were prior to the 1980s.[21] In 2005, the 17 through 24 age group remains significantly overrepresented in violent crime statistics, particularly homicides involving firearms.[39] In 2005, 17- through 19-year-olds were 4.3% of the overall population of the U.S.[40] This same age group accounted for 11.2% of those killed by firearm homicides.[41] This age group also accounted for 10.6% of all homicide offenses.[42] The 20- through 24-year-old age group accounted for 7.1% of the population,[40] while accounting for 22.5% of those killed by firearm homicides.[41] The 20 through 24 age group also accounted for 17.7% of all homicide offenses.[42] Those under age 17 are not overrepresented in homicide statistics. In 2005, 13- through 16-year-olds accounted for 6% of the overall population of the U.S., but only accounted for 3.6% of firearm homicide victims,[41] and 2.7% of overall homicide offenses.[42]

People with a criminal record were also more likely to die as homicide victims.[16] Between 1990 and 1994, 75% of all homicide victims age 21 and younger in the city of Boston had a prior criminal record.[43] In Philadelphia, the percentage of those killed in gun homicides that had prior criminal records increased from 73% in 1985 to 93% in 1996.[16][44] In Richmond, Virginia, the risk of gunshot injury is 22 times higher for those males involved with crime.[45]

In 2005, 75% of the 10,100 homicides committed using firearms in the U.S. were committed using handguns, compared to 4% with rifles, 5% with shotguns, and the rest with unspecified firearms.[46] The likelihood that a death will result is significantly increased when either the victim or the attacker has a firearm.[47] For example, the mortality rate for gunshot wounds to the heart is 84%, compared to 30% for people who sustain stab wounds to the heart.[48]

The incidence of homicides committed with a firearm in the U.S. is greater than other [50]

Deadly mass shootings have resulted in considerable coverage by the media. These shootings have represented 1% of all deaths by gun between 1980 and 2008.[51]

U.S. presidential assassinations and attempts

At least eleven assassination attempts with firearms have been made on U.S. presidents (over one-fifth of all presidents); four were successful, three with handguns and one with a rifle.

Response to these events has resulted in federal legislation to regulate the public possession of firearms. For example, the attempted assassination of Franklin Roosevelt contributed to passage of the National Firearms Act of 1934,[61] and the Kennedy assassination (along with others) resulted in the Gun Control Act of 1968. The GCA is a federal law signed by President Lyndon Johnson that broadly regulates the firearms industry and firearms owners. It primarily focuses on regulating interstate commerce in firearms by largely prohibiting interstate firearms transfers except among licensed manufacturers, dealers, and importers.

Other violent crime

A quarter of robberies of commercial premises in the U.S. are committed with guns.[62] Fatalities are three times as likely in robberies committed with guns than where other, or no, weapons are used,[62][63][64] with similar patterns in cases of family violence.[65] Criminologist Philip J. Cook hypothesized that if guns were less available, criminals might commit the same crime, but with less-lethal weapons.[66] He finds that the level of gun ownership in the 50 largest U.S. cities correlates with the rate of robberies committed with guns, but not with overall robbery rates.[67][68] A significant number of homicides are the consequence of an unintended escalation of another crime in which firearms are present, with no initial intent to kill.[64][69] Overall robbery and assault rates in the U.S. are comparable to those in other developed countries, such as Australia and Finland, with much lower levels of gun ownership.[66][69]

Gun ownership

Gun ownership figures are generally found via polling, by such organizations as the [70] In Gallup's 1972 survey, 43% reported having a gun in their home, while GSS's 1973 survey resulted in 49% reporting a gun in the home; in 1993, Gallup's poll results were 51%, while GSS's 1994 poll showed 43%.[71] In 2012, Gallup's survey showed 47% of Americans reporting having a gun in their home,[72] while the GSS in 2012 reports 34%.[71]

In 1997, estimates were approximately 44 million gun owners in the United States. These owners possessed approximately 192 million firearms, of which an estimated 65 million were handguns.[73] A National Survey on Private Ownership and Use of Firearms (NSPOF), conducted in 1994, indicated that Americans owned 192 million guns: 36% rifles, 34% handguns, 26% shotguns, and 4% other types of long guns.[73] Most firearm owners owned multiple firearms, with the NSPOF survey indicating 25% of adults owned firearms.[73] In the U.S., 11% of households reported actively being involved in hunting, with the remaining firearm owners having guns for self-protection and other reasons. Throughout the 1970s and much of the 1980s, the rate of gun ownership in the home ranged from 45-50%.[71] Rapid increases in gun purchases characterized by exceptionally large crowds accruing at gun vendors and gun shows is consistently observed due to the possibility of increased gun control following highly publicized mass murders.[74][75][76][77][78]

Gun ownership also varied across geographic regions, ranging from 25% rates of ownership in the Northeastern United States to 60% rates of ownership in the East South Central States.[79] A Gallup poll (2004) indicated that 49% of men reported gun ownership, compared to 33% of women, and 44% of whites owned a gun, compared to only 24% of nonwhites.[80] More than half of those living in rural areas (56%) owned a gun, compared with 40% of suburbanites and 29% of those in urban areas.[80] More than half (53%) of Republicans owned guns, compared with 36% of political independents and 31% of Democrats.[80] One criticism of the GSS survey and other proxy measures of gun ownership, is that they do not provide adequate macro-level detail to allow conclusions on the relationship between overall firearm ownership and gun violence.[26]Kleck compared various survey and proxy measures and found no correlation between overall firearm ownership and gun violence.[81][82]

Self-protection

The effectiveness and safety of guns used for personal defense is debated. Studies place the instances of guns used in personal defense as low as 65,000 times per year, and as high as 2.5 million times per year. Under President Clinton, the Department of Justice conducted a survey in 1994 that placed the usage rate of guns used in personal defense at 1.5 million times per year, but noted this was likely to be an overestimate.[82]

Between 1987 and 1990, McDowall found that guns were used in defense during a crime incident 64,615 times annually (258,460 times total over the whole period).[83] This equated to two times out of 1,000 criminal incidents (0.2%) that occurred in this period, including criminal incidents where no guns were involved at all.[83] For violent crimes, assault, robbery, and rape, guns were used 0.83% of the time in self-defense.[83] Of the times that guns were used in self-defense, 71% of the crimes were committed by strangers, with the rest of the incidents evenly divided between offenders that were acquaintances or persons well known to the victim.[83] In 28% of incidents where a gun was used for self-defense, victims fired the gun at the offender.[83] In 20% of the self-defense incidents, the guns were used by police officers.[83] During this same period, 1987 to 1990, there were 46,319 gun homicides,[84] and the National Crime Victimization Survey estimated that 2,628,532 nonfatal crimes involving guns occurred.[83]

McDowall's study for the American Journal of Public Health contrasted with the 1993 study by Kleck, who found that 2.45 million crimes were thwarted each year in the U.S. by guns, and in most cases, the potential victim never fired a shot.[85] The results of the Kleck studies have been cited many times in scholarly and popular media.[86][87][88][89][90][91][92]

McDowall cited methodological issues with the Kleck studies: (1) Kleck used a very small sample size and (2) did not confine the definition of self-defense to attempted victimizations where physical attacks had already commenced.[83] Kleck and Gertz said they used an anonymous random digit dialed telephone survey, and did not know the identities of the 4,977 interviewed. They said the quality of sampling procedures was well above the level common in national surveys, using a large, nationally representative survey.[93] A study of gun use in the 1990s by Hemenway at the Harvard Injury Control Research Center found that criminal use of guns was far more common than self-defense use.[94] According to the Kleck study most successful preventions of victimization were accomplished without a shot being fired, which are not counted as a self-defense firearm usage by either the Hemenway or McDowall studies.[83][85][94] Hemenway considered that the Kleck figure was inconsistent with other known statistics for crime, citing that Kleck's figures apparently showed that guns were used many times more often for self-defense in burglaries than there were reported incidents of burglaries of premises whose occupants were awake and armed with firearms.[95] Hemenway concluded that under reasonable assumptions of random errors in sampling, because of the rarity of the event, the 2.5 million figure should be considered only as the top end of a 0-2.5 million confidence interval, suggesting a highly unreliable result that is probably a gross overestimate, with the true figure one tenth that amount or less. Alternative explanations could be that many more burglaries occurred than were reported to police, and/or people overreported their use of their guns for self-defense in burglaries. Kleck responded to the criticism by stating "It is an impressive achievement to be able to arrive at such high-powered conclusions without the inconvenience of gathering or even citing any new empirical evidence" and concluding that "Hemenway has failed to cast even mild doubt on the accuracy of our estimates." [96]

States in the highest quartile for gun ownership had firearm-related homicide rates 114% higher than states in the lowest quartile of gun ownership.[97] Non-gun-related homicide rates were not significantly associated with rates of firearm ownership.[97] However other research has shown that states with more restrictive conceal-carry laws had higher gun homicide rates.[98]

Gun control proponents often cite the relatively high number of homicides committed with firearms as reason to support stricter gun control laws.[101]Firearm laws are a subject of debate in the U.S., with firearms used for recreational purposes as well as for personal protection.[14] Gun rights advocates cite the use of firearms for self-protection, and to deter violent crime, as reasons why more guns can reduce crime.[102] Gun rights advocates also say criminals are the least likely to obey firearms laws, and so limiting access to guns by law-abiding people makes them more vulnerable to armed criminals.[83]

Access to firearms

The most common type of gun confiscated by police and traced by the ATF are .38 special revolvers, such as this Smith and Wesson Model 60 .38 Special revolver with a 3-inch barrel[103]

U.S. policy aims to maintain the right of most people to own most types of firearms, while restricting access to firearms by people considered to present a higher risk of misuse.[66] Gun dealers in the U.S. are prohibited from selling handguns to those under the age of 21, and long guns to those under the age of 18.[66] There are also restrictions on selling guns to people not resident in the state.[66]

Assuming access to guns, the top ten guns involved in crime in the U.S. show a definite trend to favor handguns over long guns. The top ten guns used in crime, as reported by the ATF in 1993, were the Smith & Wesson .38 Special and .357 revolvers; Raven Arms .25 caliber, Davis P-380 .380 caliber, Ruger .22 caliber, Lorcin L-380 .380 caliber, and Smith & Wesson semi-automatic handguns; Mossberg and Remington 12 gauge shotguns; and the Tec DC-9 9 mm handgun.[103] An earlier 1985 study of 1,800 incarcerated felons showed that criminals preferred revolvers and other non-semi-automatic firearms over semi-automatic firearms.[104] In Pittsburgh a change in preferences towards pistols occurred in the early 1990s, coinciding with the arrival of crack cocaine and the rise of violent youth gangs.[105] Background checks in California from 1998 to 2000 resulted in 1% of sales being initially denied.[106] The types of guns most often denied included semiautomatic pistols with short barrels and of medium caliber.[106]

Among juveniles (minors under the age of 16, 17, or 18, depending on legal jurisdiction) serving in correctional facilities, 86% had owned a gun, with 66% acquiring their first gun by age 14.[2] There was also a tendency for juvenile offenders to have owned several firearms, with 65% owning three or more.[2] Juveniles most often acquired guns illegally from family, friends, drug dealers, and street contacts.[2]Inner city youths cited "self-protection from enemies" as the top reason for carrying a gun.[2] In Rochester, New York, 22% of young males have carried a firearm illegally, most for only a short time.[107] There is little overlap between legal gun ownership and illegal gun carrying among youths.[107]

Firearms market

Gun rights advocates complain that policy aimed at the supply side of the firearms market is based on limited research.[14] One consideration is that only 60-70% of firearms sales in the U.S. are transacted through federally licensed firearm dealers, with the remainder taking place in the "secondary market", in which previously owned firearms are transferred by non-dealers.[73][109][110][111] Access to secondary markets is generally less convenient to purchasers, and involves such risks as the possibility of the gun having been used previously in a crime.[16]:119 Unlicensed private sellers were permitted by law to sell privately owned guns at gun shows or at private locations in 24 states as of 1998.[112] Regulations that limit the number of handgun sales in the primary, regulated market to one handgun a month per customer have been shown to be effective at reducing illegal gun trafficking by reducing the supply into the secondary market.[113]Taxes on firearm purchases are another means for government to influence the primary market.[114]

Federally licensed firearm dealers in the primary (new and used gun) market are regulated by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF). Firearm manufacturers are required to mark all firearms manufactured with serial numbers. This allows the ATF to trace guns involved in crimes back to their last Federal Firearms License (FFL) reported change of ownership transaction, although not past the first private sale involving any particular gun. A report by the ATF released in 1999 found that 0.4% of federally licensed dealers sold half of the guns used criminally in 1996 and 1997.[115][116] This is sometimes done through "straw purchases."[115] State laws, such as those in California, that restrict the number of gun purchases in a month may help stem such "straw purchases."[115] An estimated 500,000 guns are stolen each year, becoming available to prohibited users.[109][114] During the ATF's Youth Crime Gun Interdiction Initiative (YCGII), which involved expanded tracing of firearms recovered by law enforcement agencies,[117] only 18% of guns used criminally that were recovered in 1998 were in possession of the original owner.[118] Guns recovered by police during criminal investigations were often sold by legitimate retail sales outlets to legal owners, and then diverted to criminal use over relatively short times ranging from a few months to a few years,[43][118][119] which makes them relatively new compared with firearms in general circulation.[114][120]

The Firearm Owners Protection Act, also known as the McClure-Volkmer Act, was passed in 1986. It changed some restrictions in the 1968 Act, allowing federally licensed gun dealers and individual unlicensed private sellers to sell at gun shows, while continuing to require licensed gun dealers to require background checks.[115] The 1986 Act also restricted the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms from conducting repetitive inspections, reduced the amount of record-keeping required of gun dealers, raised the burden of proof for convicting gun law violators, and changed restrictions on convicted felons from owning firearms.[115]

In the years following the passage of the Gun Control Act of 1968, people buying guns were required to show identification and sign a statement affirming that they were not in any of the prohibited categories.[66] Many states enacted background check laws that went beyond the federal requirements.[122] The Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act passed by Congress in 1993 imposed a waiting period before the purchase of a handgun, giving time for, but not requiring, a background check to be made.[123] The Brady Act also required the establishment of a national system to provide instant criminal background checks, with checks to be done by firearms dealers.[124] The Brady Act only applied to people who bought guns from licensed dealers, whereas most felons buy guns from a black market.[125][125] Restrictions, such as waiting periods, are opposed by many, who argue that they impose costs and inconveniences on legitimate gun purchasers, such as hunters.[114]

The Domestic Violence Offender Gun Ban, the Lautenberg Amendment, prohibited anyone previously convicted of a misdemeanor or felony crime of domestic violence from shipment, transport, ownership and use of guns or ammunition.[129] This law also prohibited the sale or gift of a firearm or ammunition to such a person. It was passed in 1996, and became effective in 1997. The law does not exempt people who use firearms as part of their duties, such as police officers or military personnel with applicable criminal convictions; they may not carry firearms.[130]

State legislation

Right-to-carry

Right-to-carry laws expanded in the 1990s as homicide rates from gun violence in the U.S. increased, largely in response to incidents such as the Luby's shooting of 1991 in Texas which directly resulted in the passage of a carrying concealed weapon, or CCW, law in Texas in 1995.[132] As Rorie Sherman, staff reporter for the National Law Journal wrote in an article published on April 18, 1994, "It is a time of unparalleled desperation about crime. But the mood is decidedly 'I'll do it myself' and 'Don't get in my way.'"[133]

The result was laws, or the lack thereof, that permitted persons to carry firearms openly, known as open carry, often without any permit required, in 22 states by 1998.[134] Laws that permitted persons to carry concealed handguns, sometimes termed a concealed handgun license, CHL, or concealed pistol license, CPL in some jurisdictions instead of CCW, existed in 34 states in the U.S. by 2004.[14] Since then, the number of states with CCW laws has increased; as of 2014, all 50 states have some form of CCW laws on the books.[135][136]

Economist John Lott has argued that right-to-carry laws create a perception that more potential crime victims might be carrying firearms, and thus serve as a deterrent against crime.[137] Lott's study has been criticized for not adequately controlling for other factors, including other state laws also enacted, such as Florida's laws requiring background checks and waiting period for handgun buyers.[138] When Lott's data was re-analyzed by some researchers, the only statistically significant effect of concealed-carry laws found was an increase in assaults,[138] with similar findings by Jens Ludwig.[139] Since concealed-carry permits are only given to adults, Philip J. Cook suggested that analysis should focus on the relationship with adult and not juvenile gun incident rates.[66] He found no statistically significant effect.[66] A 2004 National Academy of Science survey of existing literature found that the data available "are too weak to support unambiguous conclusions" about the impact of right-to-carry laws on rates of violent crime.[14] NAS suggested that new analytical approaches and datasets at the county or local level are needed to adequately evaluate the impact of right-to-carry laws.[140]

Child Access Prevention (CAP)

Child Access Prevention (CAP) laws, enacted by many states, require parents to store firearms safely, to minimize access by children to guns, while maintaining ease of access by adults.[141] CAP laws hold gun owners liable should a child gain access to a loaded gun that is not properly stored.[141] The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) claimed that, on average, one child died every three days in accidental incidents in the U.S. from 2000 to 2005.[142] In most states, CAP law violations are considered misdemeanors.[141]Florida's CAP law, enacted in 1989, permits felony prosecution of violators.[141] Research indicates that CAP laws are correlated with a reduction in unintentional gun deaths by 23%,[143] and gun suicides among those aged 14 through 17 by 11%.[144] A study by Lott did not detect a relationship between CAP laws and accidental gun deaths or suicides among those age 19 and under between 1979 and 1996.[145] The National Bureau of Economic Research has found that CAP laws are correlated with a reduction of non-fatal gun injuries among both children and adults by 30-40%.[141] Research also indicated that CAP laws were most highly correlated with reductions of non-fatal gun injuries in states where violations were considered felonies, whereas in states that considered violations as misdemeanors, the potential impact of CAP laws was not statistically significant.[146] All of these studies were correlational, and do not account for other potential contributing factors.

Prevention programs

Violence prevention and educational programs have been established in many schools and communities across the United States. These programs aim to change personal behavior of both children and their parents, encouraging children to stay away from guns, ensure parents store guns safely, and encourage children to solve disputes without resorting to violence.[149] Programs aimed at altering behavior range from passive (requiring no effort on the part of the individual) to active (supervising children, or placing a trigger lock on a gun).[149] The more effort required of people, the more difficult it is to implement a prevention strategy.[150][151] Prevention strategies focused on modifying the situational environment and the firearm itself may be more effective.[149] Empirical evaluation of gun violence prevention programs has been limited.[14] Of the evaluations that have been done, results indicate such programs have minimal effectiveness.[149]

Hotline

SPEAK UP is a national youth violence prevention initiative created by The Center to Prevent Youth Violence,[152] which provides young people with tools to improve the safety of their schools and communities. The SPEAK UP program is an anonymous, national hot-line for young people to report threats of violence in their communities or at school. The hot-line is operated in accordance with a protocol developed in collaboration with national education and law enforcement authorities, including the FBI. Trained counselors, with access to translators for 140 languages, collect information from callers and then report the threat to appropriate school and law enforcement officials.[153][154]

Gun safety parent counseling

One of the most widely used parent counseling programs is Steps to Prevent Firearm Injury program (STOP), which was developed in 1994 by the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence.[149] STOP was superseded by STOP 2 in 1998, which has a broader focus including more communities and health care providers.[149] STOP has been evaluated and found not to have a significant effect on gun ownership or firearm storage practices by inner-city parents.[155] Marjorie S. Hardy suggests further evaluation of STOP is needed, as this evaluation had a limited sample size and lacked a control group.[149]

Children

Prevention programs geared towards children have also not been greatly successful.[149] Many inherent challenges arise when working with children, including their tendency to perceive themselves as invulnerable to injury,[156] limited ability to apply lessons learned,[157][158] their innate curiosity,[157] and peer pressure.

The goal of gun safety programs, usually administered by local firearms dealers and shooting clubs, is to teach older children and adolescents how to handle firearms safely.[149] There has been no systematic evaluation of the effect of these programs on children.[149] For adults, no positive effect on gun storage practices has been found as a result of these programs.[73][159] Also, researchers have found that gun safety programs for children may likely increase a child's interest in obtaining and using guns, which they cannot be expected to use safely all the time, even with training.[160]

One approach taken is gun avoidance, such as when encountering a firearm at a neighbor's home. The Eddie Eagle Gun Safety Program, administered by the National Rifle Association (NRA), is geared towards younger children from pre-kindergarten to sixth grade, and teaches kids that real guns are not toys by emphasizing a "just say no" approach.[149] The Eddie Eagle program is based on training children in a four-step action to take when they see a firearm: (1) Stop! (2) Don't touch! (3) Leave the area. (4) Go tell an adult. Materials, such as coloring books and posters, back the lessons up and provide the repetition necessary in any child-education program. The ineffectiveness of the "just say no" approach promoted by the NRA's Eddie the Eagle program was highlighted in an investigative piece by ABC's Diane Sawyer in 1999.[161] Sawyer's piece was based on academic studies conducted by Dr. Marjorie Hardy, assistant professor of psychology at Muhlenberg College in Allentown, Pennsylvania.[162] Dr. Hardy's study tracked the behavior of elementary age schoolchildren who spent a day learning the Eddie the Eagle four-step action plan from a uniformed police officer. The children were then placed into a playroom which contained a hidden gun. When the children found the gun, they did not run away from the gun, but rather, they inevitably played with it, pulled the trigger while looking into the barrel, or aimed the gun at a playmate and pulled the trigger. The study concluded that children's natural curiosity was far more powerful than the parental admonition to "Just say no".[163]

Eddie Eagle Program

The Eddie Eagle program and its namesake character were developed by the National Rifle Association for children who are generally considered too young to be allowed to handle firearms. While maturity levels vary, the Eddie Eagle program is intended for children of any age from pre-school through third grade. The program trains children to avoid causing harm when they encounter firearms, through an easily remembered litany:

Stop — to take time to remember the rest of the instructions.

Don't touch — A firearm that is not touched or acted upon by an outside force is highly unlikely to fire, or endanger a person.

Leave the area — By leaving the area the child removes himself/herself from temptation, as well as from the danger that another person might pick up the gun and negligently cause it to fire.

Tell an adult — An adult, if not personally trained in handling firearms, should know enough to seek professional assistance.

The NRA, which also sponsors training for adults in safe gun-handling, developed this program in response to news stories about deaths and injuries of youths by negligent gunfire.

Some gun control advocacy groups have developed their own programs, such as Straight Talk about Risks (STAR), administered by the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence, and Hands without Guns, run by the Joshua Horwitz Educational Fund to End Handgun Violence.[149]

Community programs

Programs targeted at entire communities, such as community revitalization, after-school programs, and media campaigns, may be more effective in reducing the general level of violence that children are exposed to.[164][165] Community-based programs that have specifically targeted gun violence include Safe Kids/Healthy Neighborhoods Injury Prevention Program in New York City,[166][167] and Safe Homes and Havens in Chicago.[149] Evaluation of such community-based programs is difficult, due to many confounding factors and the multifaceted nature of such programs.[149]

Gun buyback programs

Gun "buyback" programs are a strategy aimed at influencing the firearms market by taking guns "off the streets".[169] Gun buyback programs have been shown to be ineffective,[170][171] with the National Academy of Sciences citing theory underlying these programs as "badly flawed."[169] Guns surrendered tend to be those least likely to be involved in crime, such as old, malfunctioning guns with little resale value, muzzleloading or other black-powder guns, antiques chambered for obsolete cartridges that are no longer commercially manufactured or sold, or guns that individuals inherit but have little value in possessing.[172] Other limitations of gun buyback programs include the fact that it is relatively easy to obtain gun replacements, often of better guns than were relinquished in the buyback.[169] Also, the number of handguns used in crime (approximately 7,500 per year) is very small compared to the approximately 70 million handguns in the U.S. (i.e., 0.011%).[169]

"Gun bounty" programs launched in several Florida cities have shown more promise. These programs involve cash rewards for anonymous tips about illegal weapons that lead to an arrest and a weapons charge. Since its inception in May 2007, the Miami program has led to 264 arrests and the confiscation of 432 guns owned illegally and $2.2 million in drugs, and has solved several murder and burglary cases.[173]

Operation Ceasefire

In 1995, Operation Ceasefire was established as a strategy for stemming the epidemic of youth gun violence in Boston. Violence was particularly concentrated in poor, inner-city neighborhoods including Roxbury, Dorchester, and Mattapan.[174] There were 22 youths (under the age of 24) killed in Boston in 1987, with that figure rising to 73 in 1990.[174] Operation Ceasefire entailed a problem-oriented policing approach, and focused on specific places that were crime hot spots—two strategies that when combined have been shown to be quite effective.[175][176][177] Particular focus was placed on two elements of the gun violence problem, including illicit gun trafficking[178] and gang violence.[174] Within two years of implementing Operation Ceasefire in Boston, the number of youth homicides dropped to ten, with only one handgun-related youth homicide occurring in 1999 and 2000.[115] The Operation Ceasefire strategy has since been replicated in other cities, including Los Angeles.[179]

Project Exile

Federally supported gun violence intervention program

Project Exile, conducted in Richmond, Virginia during the 1990s, was a coordinated effort involving federal, state, and local officials that targeted gun violence. The strategy entailed prosecution of gun violations in Federal courts, where sentencing guidelines were tougher. Project Exile also involved outreach and education efforts through media campaigns, getting the message out about the crackdown.[180] Research analysts offered different opinions as to the program's success in reducing gun crime. Authors of a 2003 analysis of the program argued that the decline in gun homicide was part of a "general regression to the mean" across U.S. cities with high homicide rates.[181] Authors of a 2005 study disagreed, concluding that Richmond's gun homicide rate fell more rapidly than the rates in other large U.S. cities with other influences controlled.[180][182]

Research limitations

In the United States, research into firearms and violent crime is fraught with difficulties, associated with limited data on gun ownership and use,[79] firearms markets, and aggregation of crime data.[14] Research studies into gun violence have primarily taken one of two approaches: case-control studies and social ecology.[14] Gun ownership is usually determined through surveys, proxy variables, and sometimes with production and import figures. In statistical analysis of homicides and other types of crime which are rare events, these data tend to have poisson distributions, which also presents methodological challenges to researchers. With data aggregation, it is difficult to make inferences about individual behavior.[189] This problem, known as ecological fallacy, is not always handled properly by researchers; this leads some to jump to conclusions that their data do not necessarily support.[190]

In 1996, the NRA lobbied Congressman Jay Dickey (R-Ark.) to include budget provisions that prohibited the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) from advocating or promoting gun control and that deleted $2.6 million from the CDC budget, the exact amount the CDC had spent on firearms research the previous year. The ban was later extended to all research funded by the Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS). According to scientists in the field, this made gun research more difficult, reduced the number of studies, and discouraged researchers from even talking about gun violence at medical and scientific conferences. In 2013, after the December 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting, President Barack Obama ordered the CDC to resume funding research on gun violence and prevention, and put $10 million in the 2014 budget request for it.[191]

^Miller, Matthew; Hemenway, David (2001). "Firearm Prevalence and the Risk of Suicide: A Review". Harvard Health Policy Review (Exploring Policy in Health Care (EPIHC)) 2 (2): 29–37. One study found a statistically significant relationship between gun ownership levels and suicide rate across 14 developed nations (e.g. where survey data on gun ownership levels were available), but the association lost its statistical significance when additional countries were included.

^United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime: Homicides by firearm statistics. Total 2009 firearms homicides for the UK are given as 41, which equates to 0.07 per 100,000 of the 62 million inhabitants (this figure is rounded to one decimal place in the table, i.e. 0.1. The figure without rounding error is 0.07).

^The background check provision has been challenged on grounds that it violates the Tenth Amendment of the Constitution. In the 1997 case, Printz v. United States, the Supreme Court voided that part of the Brady Act. (Rushefsky, 2002)

^Kennedy, David M.; Piehl, Anne M.; Braga, Anthony A. (1996). "Gun buy-backs: Where do we stand and where do we go?". In Plotkin, Martha R. Under Fire: Gun Buy-Backs, Exchanges, and Amnesty Programs. Police Executive Research Forum.

^"Gun Bounty Program Makes Big Bust In South Miami-Dade". CBS Local Media. May 26, 2010. Retrieved June 1, 2010.

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